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How many of the 170k English words do you know?

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Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#151

Post by dbingham »

If the goal is to actually calculate how many words we know, then you should include an "I don't know" option. Sure, some people will choose to guess to inflate their score, but some of us will be honest because we legitimately want to know our scores.

If you force me to guess, then I'm going to guess. Not only does that give me a 25% chance of getting it right at random, but as others have pointed out, it is very hard to make a multiple choice question that isn't guessable by an astute enough test taker. I think I knew 80 - 85 of those words, but I scored 97, because those questions were very guessable.

Also, reiterating everyone else's comments with respect to the UX needing fewer clicks, and also the definitions not being exact or precise in many cases.

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#152

Post by steve_adams_86 »

Findecanor wrote: post #119

I got an estimate of 70,550, from a score of 87/100 (20/18/16/17/16). Not native English speaker. I suppose the words must be weighed, because other people in the thread with more correct words got a not much higher estimate.

Strange. I got a lower estimate despite getting more correct than you and getting more grandmaster words.

Admittedly I had to guess several. It’s kind of an etymological deduction and estimation game at times.

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#153

Post by iugtmkbdfil834 »

alentred wrote: post #135
DC-3 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also doesn't get hard enough. Also way too many of the words are just words about long words, or the tendency to be verbose.

> It also doesn't get hard enough Oh come on! Like you really knew what "Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia" is?

:D I did better than expected, but I did miss that one. I learned some fun ones.

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#155

Post by philipwhiuk »

DC-3 wrote: post #118
sd9 wrote: post #30

Interesting concept, but 100 words is really quite a lot to get through... It's tiresome trudging through the easy words at the start, and I never got to see the interesting words before getting bored. I've seen other systems like this calibrate far more quickly by assigning a sort of score and confidence behind the scenes. Confidence starts out low and increases over time - correct/incorrect answers rapidly adjust s…

It also doesn't get hard enough. Also way too many of the words are just words about long words, or the tendency to be verbose.

It does get hard enough but only in the very last fraction.

Zenzizenzizenzic for example.

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#156

Post by philipwhiuk »

analog8374 wrote: post #123
latexr wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's intentional. What is? > I'm guessing it's testing our susceptibility to machine-generated compliments I fail to see the point. For one, the compliments aren’t particularly good or interesting; for another, I didn’t even read them (I just went back to check after your comment), I simply clicked when seeing green.

too many clicks per word. and the distance between click points. that's intentional. well the point would be to see how susceptible you are to that. They're figuring out where your cost vs reward tipping point is.

There's a small handful, mostly QI-inspired.

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#157

Post by vova_hn2 »

Got 59,800, Performance Breakdown:

Core Basics 19/20

Intermediate 17/20

Advanced 19/20

Expert 14/20

Grandmaster 12/20

I guess, it's not too bad for a non-native speaker.

Minor feedback:

1. The correct answer for "Lethargic" is "Affected by lethargy". I think, definitions should not use words that share common root with the defined word, because:

a. it makes guessing too easy

b. it basically becomes a circular definition which is meaningless

2. Options almost always include 1 correct answer, 1 direct opposite and 2 completely random. Once you learn to recognise it, you can easily rule out 2 random options and have a 50/50 guess.

Re: How many of the 170k English words do you know?

#159

Post by vova_hn2 »

Laurel1234 wrote: post #10

Pretty fun. I suggest skipping the submit button and just showing it's correct when pressing and moving on after a sec or so. Having to click on submit twice really breaks the flow. Also in all the words I tried I noticed out of the 4 options one is the correct one, another is the opposite of the correct one, and the other 2 are random stuff. You can basically skip any option whose antonym isn't present as well.

> I suggest skipping the submit button and just showing it's correct when pressing and moving on after a sec or so.

Having an answer counted as incorrect, just because I've accidentally touched the screen of the phone? I would absolutely hate that.

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